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162 ANDREA GRAZIOSIarchives many letters from Sergo to Stalin and the CC, accompanied bynotes from Piatakov that ask Sergo to write, adding "esli mozhno, ia proektpis'ma sostavil"). It was Piatakov who chose much of the higher echelonsof the commissariat, on the basis of merit, competence, and devotion (inthis regard, it is striking to read what Barmine writes about the differencebetween Piatakov's and Voroshilov's collaborators during those years). 44 Itwas he who made the NKTP into a "reactionary" structure, as some Americanauthors have written, grotesquely commenting on the prevalence ofpeople with higher education and of "dubious" social origin in its leadership.It was he who perfected the cultivated version of those methods tokeep the bureaucratic machine under pressure, later described by Век inNovoe naznachenie. And it was he who decided, in general terms at least, 45which factories were to be built and where, following the plans eleboratedat the OSVOK during the previous decade and brought up to date by thelarge conference on the raionirovanie of industry in the Second Five-YearPlan.Piatakov was inspired by the same idea of the 1920s: to build a largemodern system of state industry, this time limited to heavy industry,because of the retreat we have mentioned. This program was facilitated bythe physical existence abroad of the blueprints to follow, which made itpossible for the "planners" to give themselves definite goals for industrialinvestments. But the amount of effort required should not be underestimated:it can be judged by thinking of the difficulties involved in thesimultaneous creation of whole interdependent sectors of industry.The results of this effort were surprising. By the middle of 1934, thelong-desired, modern "system of state industry" existed and functioned. Butits productivity was low and this clashed with the tenets of its creators, Piatakovand Ordzhonikidze in particular. They believed such a system to befar superior to its "capitalist" competitors; thus, in their eyes, low productivitycould only be some sort of teething problem to be speedily overcomeby forcing the cadres and the work force of Soviet industry to make greatstrides, at the same time taking measures to better their living conditions—something made possible by the previously won victories (Piatakov thendefended, in opposition to M. Kaganovich, a "paternalistic-progressive"44The quality of the upper echelons is one of the fundamental variables in the working of allbureaucratic systems, which are basically "subjective" systems. Its importance increases withthese systems' degree of "purity," i.e., with the increasing lack of social and economic counterweightsto the bureaucracies' actions.45Stalin and the "little Stalins" had, of course, their "favorite" projects, their hobby-horses,like Karaganda or the great canals. This was yet another cause of both changes in the plans andwaste of resources.